My trip started off with buying some Chop Sushi which was followed by an enlightening ride to the train station by my self-sytled “Puerto Rican Amish” Uber driver, Louis. I took this to be a sign of good things to come. The train ride from the Lancaster train station to Philadelphia was relaxing, especially traveling through the bucolic landscape of eastern Lancaster county. I took the earlier train there because I read online that the trip from 30th St Station to the airport was 52 minutes long… it’s not, it’s 14 minutes long. So I got to the airport at 4 pm for my 9:05 pm flight and checked into the lounge where they told me that I would definitely have time before my flight. Whew.
I learned a couple things during my hours in the lounge, notably that it gets really crowded around 5 to 6 then it dies down. The food in the Centurion lounge is pretty good actually, the chicken doesn’t look the best but it’s quite tasty, the feta/cucumber salad is delicious, the cookies are good and the zucchini is good but a little mushy. I got a couple beers and a special cocktail while I read my book and waited for my flight. It was also at this point that I realized I forgot to get the special outlet converter things so this has the potential to be a really short blog.
As to be expected with my American Airlines flight out of Philadelphia was delayed an hour and change because they hadn’t loaded the cargo/baggage on to the plane before they loaded all the people. Lovely. Overall though the flight was fairly uneventful, two small meals were served and I might’ve caught a wink of sleep here or there. Upon landing I quickly loaded up the free WiFi (thank you Europe) because I didn’t have the street number of the apartment we were staying at for my immigration form, preparation at its finest. Then I messaged Connor a little bit and decided I didn’t really want to wait in the airport for four hours so I bought a bus ticket with the help of a nice gentleman and then walked around outside the airport a little bit. Oh, and to nobody’s surprise at all it was raining.
After taking the bus to the end of the line I navigated to the apartment building where our AirBnB was, although the owner should probably come up with some clearer directions… They were just finishing cleaning the apartment when I got there and I was able to grab the room key after getting a warmer jacket on. I decided to go to the Bernard Shaw for lunch and a pint because it was on Google Maps (I know, strict selection criteria). I was mostly successful, but instead ended up at a hipster cafe/bar/restaurant combo. I ordered the cabbage soup and a pint of Guiness, even though the server/barrista/etc was very excited about their new soft serve ice cream machine… Towards the end of my lunch a guy came in and in response to the question “Do you want a juice” said “No, I might be getting drunk.”
I took a little stroll through some very nice gardens and a stunning park before returning to wait for Connor and Allie. During this stroll I discovered to my pleasant surprise that spring comes sooner to Ireland than to Lancaster! Most of the trees already have leaves and the flowers are mostly blooming. After I returned to the apartment I took a twenty minute nap and a ten minute snooze and waited for Connor and Allie to find their way from the airport to the apartment. After they got here Connor and I took a taxi to a tattoo parlor where Connor got a tattoo. Our taxi driver used to live in Philadelphia and we talked about Lancaster and Amish people on the way. He was a fan of Strasburg too. While walking up to the tattoo place we found out that there was a “major accident” almost right in front. The story was a guy robbed a pharmacy, tried to make a getaway, ran into a bus, got spun around and then crashed head on into a police cruiser.
Connor got his tattoo and then we headed to a tourist pub called the Stag’s Head for dinner and pints. We got hearty Lancaster county, er, hearty Irish food while there. Then we went to Oliver St Goggarty’s (or something) for the start of our musical pub crawl. The pub crawl took us to three pubs where two Irish musicians played a variety of songs and tunes. My favorite part was the Irish pipes which required four hands to play it seemed. We made our way back to the apartment via another taxi because I noticed that everyone was yawning
